Our story stars Kaoru, trying to survive high school when in comes a transfer student called Battousai. A couple weeks later after school hours, she had the bad luck of walking in on him using a sword to cut down several of the popular kids faster and more effectively than any human could. After running, arming herself, and hiding in a closet, Battousai catches up to her. This is followed by Kaoru stabbing him to death, stealing his sword and setting the school on fire.

This concludes Chapter Three. Of Thirty-Four+.

Five years later, Kaoru is moving into an apartment right after finishing high school. During the move, a friend of a friend named Kenshin shows up to help with the unpacking, forcing Kaoru to come face to face with a guy who has somehow come Back from the Dead. It doesn't help that he won't stop hitting on her, either...

Notably, the plot is told from the perspective of the person who would normally be the Love Interest, Lampshades are hung everywhere, and the characters run on being Genre Savvy.

Chekhov's Boomerang: Early on, Kaoru is wearing a ribbon which Kenshin unties right before she kills him. After the time jump, she finds it tied around some flowers Kenshin left her. Even later, it comes up AGAIN when he tells her to carry it around for protection.

Combat Pragmatist: Kaoru is quite willing to let her opponents think she's helpless while having a knife taped to her wrist.

Combat Stilettos: When Misao and Aoshi are attacked on their first date, Misao arms herself with the high heel shoes she'd worn that night.

Contrived Coincidence: The one where Saitoh is Kenshin and Kaoru's coworker for two completely different jobs? Or the one where Kenshin spent time at Kaoru and Sano's high schools' for work, two people who incidentally became friends years later? Or all the demon attacks that happen to people in the same group of friends, often for no discernible reason? Yeah, there's a lot of these.

Distressed Damsel: Kaoru purposefully uses the perception that she's more helpless than she really is to get her opponents to underestimate her.

Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: Kaoru, fully aware of this trope, picks up a demonic sword off a dead body all the while worrying about getting possessed or something, though in the end nothing happens. The alternative, though, was leaving it lying around where anyone could run across it. Kenshin does later ask her to not do it again, as it usually ends with him getting more work to do.

Kaoru: Good friends understand the importance of things like promises. And timing. For example, you might think it would be a good idea for me to go shopping right away, tomorrow, for, um, boots. But I know that I really don't need any boots, and even if I did need boots, this is really not the right time.

Misao: Oh, Kaoru, you know that nowadays boots are appropriate for any time of year, and you can't keep putting off boot-shopping forever. Especially since you promised I could help out, way back when we were in...

Kaoru: I admire your fashion sense, Misao, and you do have great taste in boots, especially recently, but every time you've tried to pick out a pair of boots... or other footware... for anybody else, the results have not been pretty. Disastrous, even. Like the boots you picked out for Tae last Christmas. That was not good.

Misao: How was I supposed to know she already had some that she really liked? Speaking of 'liked," Kaoru, just the other day, I saw that pair of boots you were crazy about all...

Kaoru: Oh, that was ages ago. And I was never really interested; they don't match anything I have.

Kaoru: (inner monologue) Sano can't possibly know that he's a demon, and he's known Kenshin long enough to trust him, so... so he must know Kenshin as doing SOMETHING for a living, like being a doctor, or a teacher, or a lawyer—well, probably not a lawyer, some kind of reasonably non-demonic profession...

Eye Scream: When Kaoru attacks Jineh, he loses an eye, which then stitches itself back together...

Face Death with Dignity: Kaoru states as much and refuses to look away while Jineh tries to cut her in half. It also applies to Sano when he calmly asks Kenshin if he's going to kill him after the masquerade breaks, and what makes him decide to spare him.

Fainting: Kaoru passes out when she finds out that Battousai wasn't as dead as she thought he was (five years after the fact, no less).

In one chapter, Kaoru thinks to herself that it would be bad in Kenshin just knocked on her family door asking for his sword back. Kenshin later gets his sword back by...knocking on the door and asking to look for it. To add irony, his success in finding it helps to save her life.

A couple times, characters notice and point out that there are a lot of people seem to be wearing fedora's around town. Turns out they had been seeing a fedora-wearing Jineh, who was stalking Kaoru.

Sano acts particularly stressed when Kaoru starts insisting he explain to Megumi what's going on. The main reason for this is he's planning a proposal.

Gambit Roulette: The bad guys implement an Evil Plan to steal back Shishio's sword which took decades of waiting, predicting exactly how a shrine will react in that time due to their financial difficulties, and killing two people in a staged car crash which all lead to the sword being in a museum in a different country, and thus easier to swipe. One of the heroes is sent to the other side of the planet just to figure out how they did it.

Genre Savvy: Just about every character shows this to some degree, though Kaoru displays it most extensively (being the main character helps). It's practically a driving force of the story all by itself.

High School A.U.: It's a rather odd variation. It starts out with Kaoru, Misao, and Battousai in high school. After the first three chapters, there's a five year time jump, in which Yahiko and Yutaro are in high school while Kaoru and Saitoh work as teachers.

I Need a Freaking Drink: In anticipation of this trope, Kaoru gets Sano a beer while she laughs hysterically in the other room over his admittance of his Virgin Sacrifice incident from high school. By the time she gets back, he's taken it upon himself to get a second one.

Insecurity Camera: Despite half the cast having magical powers, several security cameras were taken care of in a mundane way. Which makes it all the sadder.

Aoshi: So you think that [the security cameras] were in fact turned on at the time and deactivated later as part of the theft? Or that one of the guards was bribed not to activate them afterwards?

In with the In Crowd: Kenshin purposefully appeals to the popular students since they were his targets. Years later, his love interest and best friend are the same people who were the outcasts in high school.

Kaoru: I don't care if it is Halloween, nobody is going to believe that it's an evil demon's fault they are lacking snack food!

Kenshin: (huffs) M'not evil...

It Came from the Fridge: Kenshin refused to use the milk out of Kaoru's fridge and was dumbfounded as to how it was so bad since it couldn't be more than a few weeks old. Meanwhile, Megumi won't eat anything whatsoever that resided in Sano's fridge. Since he thinks it's normal to take ice cream from god knows when, chip off the ice crystals and add alcohol, she has good reasons for this stance.

Kill It with Fire: Kaoru remembers this rule after killing Kenshin, and trying to burn the body. It doesn't work as well as she would have liked and he admits it's not a very effective method and should be abandoned.

The Klutz: Kaoru is notorious for being clumsy with anything except a bokkan. Her reputation helps her to get away with dumping soda on Kenshin.

Leave No Witnesses: Kenshin says that this is one the of the rules he's supposed to follow, though Kaoru and Sano are proof that he'll ignore it sometimes.

Lethal Chef: Despite the wonders of modern technology, Kaoru still can't cook for shit.

Misao: Just seeing you struck me completely speechless, which, by the way, shocked my friends more than finding out that you're a demon would. Well, probably.

Misao: Listen... do you have anything planned for this afternoon? Cause I have a date, and I need a new dress... and some new lingerie... and possibly really high heels... Anyway, um, Megumi and I are going shopping, and I really, really, really want you to come along, because I really want your opinion, and it would be a chance to come shopping with us and be the one who gets to make all the comments and criticize whatever I pick, you know, to make up for all the other times when we've dragged you shopping...

Kaoru: You just don't need the amount of oxygen that normal humans require, do you?

Off with His Head!: Kenshin and Jineh's fight ends with Kenshin beheading him. Also, Kaoru regrets not trying this against Kenshin (along with the Kill It with Fire plan), though it's implied demons can come back even from that.

One Degree of Separation: Most of the cast has met before, or at least become involved with everything happening due to completely independent events. If everyone was honest, every introduction would be followed by "Hey! I remember you from...".

Spared by the Adaptation: Kaoru's father is still alive (Yahiko's father was someone else in the series, so this doesn't count for him).

Stealth Hi/Bye: Kenshin pulls this on Kaoru quite often (much to her annoyance).

Stern Teacher: Despite striking fear in everyone around him, Saitoh's not unreasonable in what he expects from his students and co-workers, and avoids falling into the more expected Sadist Teacher category.

Virgin Sacrifice: Sano was kidnapped by his classmates to be sacrificed to settle a debt.

Wacky Marriage Proposal: Sano opts to propose to Megumi during his bar's Halloween party on stage while she's dresses as a street urchin but not before going over with the audience how exactly they met.

Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World: Saitoh, except he's a teacher instead of a student. Later in the story, as the enemy becomes more of a threat, he begins to have Kaoru run the class herself while he goes to "emergency teacher conferences." Weirdly, she buys this.

With This Herring: Kaoru ends up in the position of having to fight Battousai, someone she has just seen cut down about three dozen people without breaking a sweat. Her arsenal? A kitchen knife she grabs out of the Home Economics classroom. Yep. The best part? It WORKS.

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